Standard consciousness glossary

philosophy-of-mind · intermediate

Mary's Room

Also called: knowledge argument

A thought experiment in which Mary, a scientist who has lived her whole life in a black-and-white room, knows every physical fact about colour vision but has never seen colour. The question is whether she learns something new the moment she finally sees red for the first time. Philosopher Frank Jackson used it to argue that physical knowledge alone may not capture everything there is to know about conscious experience.

sleep-and-altered-states · intro

Meditation

A family of mental practices, many originating in contemplative religious traditions, that train attention and awareness, often aimed at achieving a calm, focused, or altered state of consciousness. Neuroimaging studies of experienced meditators have documented measurable changes in brain structure and activity associated with sustained practice, particularly in regions related to attention and emotional regulation.

cognitive-science · intermediate

Mental Representation

An internal cognitive symbol or model that stands in for an external object, situation, or concept, allowing the mind to reason about things that are not immediately present to the senses. Debates over the format of mental representations, such as whether some are picture-like and others language-like, have been central to cognitive science since its early history.

self-and-social-cognition · intermediate

Mentalizing

The cognitive process of inferring and reasoning about the mental states, such as beliefs, intentions, and emotions, of oneself and others, closely related to theory of mind. It engages a consistent network of brain regions, sometimes referred to as the 'mentalizing network', which shows substantial overlap with the brain's default mode network.

cognitive-science · intermediate

Metacognition

Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes, often described informally as thinking about thinking. It includes monitoring how well one understands or remembers something, and regulating cognitive strategies accordingly, and is closely linked to higher-order theories of consciousness that treat awareness itself as a form of monitoring directed at other mental states.

philosophy-of-mind · intro

Mind-Body Problem

The general philosophical question of how mental states, such as thoughts, feelings, and conscious experiences, relate to physical states of the body and brain. It is one of the oldest problems in philosophy, and essentially every position in philosophy of mind, from dualism to physicalism to panpsychism, is an attempt to answer it.

self-and-social-cognition · intermediate

Mind-Wandering

A shift of attention away from a current task or the external environment toward internally generated thoughts, such as memories, plans, or fantasies, occurring spontaneously and often without full awareness that one's attention has shifted. It is strongly associated with activity in the brain's default mode network and occupies a substantial fraction of waking mental life.

sleep-and-altered-states · intro

Mindfulness

A form of attention characterised by a non-judgemental, moment-to-moment awareness of present experience, including thoughts, bodily sensations, and the surrounding environment. It has been adapted from Buddhist contemplative traditions into secular clinical interventions, and is used in structured therapeutic programmes for conditions including chronic stress and recurrent depression.

clinical-and-disorders · intermediate

Minimally Conscious State

Also called: MCS

A condition of severely altered consciousness in which a patient shows minimal but definite behavioural evidence of self- or environmental awareness, such as inconsistently following simple commands or reaching for objects, distinguishing it from the persistent vegetative state, where no such evidence is present.

self-and-social-cognition · intermediate

Mirror Neurons

Neurons, first identified in the premotor cortex of macaque monkeys, that fire both when an individual performs a specific action and when they observe another individual performing that same action. Their discovery generated considerable interest in a possible neural basis for empathy, imitation, and understanding others' actions, though claims about their precise role and importance in humans remain debated among researchers.

self-and-social-cognition · intermediate

Mirror Self-Recognition

A test of self-awareness, most famously the 'mirror test' developed by psychologist Gordon Gallup, in which a mark is placed on an individual's body in a location visible only via a mirror; touching or investigating the mark upon seeing the reflection is taken as evidence of recognising the reflection as oneself. Very few species, including humans past a certain age, great apes, dolphins, and some corvids, have reliably passed versions of this test.

consciousness-theories · intermediate

Multiple Drafts Model

A model of consciousness proposed by philosopher Daniel Dennett, which rejects the idea of a single, central point in the brain where information becomes consciously experienced all at once, in favour of many parallel streams of interpretation and revision occurring across the brain simultaneously, with no single stream having privileged status as 'the' conscious experience.

perception · intermediate

Multisensory Integration

The process by which the brain combines information from different sensory modalities, such as vision and hearing, into a coherent, unified perceptual experience. The McGurk effect, in which mismatched visual and auditory speech cues produce a perceived sound different from either input alone, is a well-known demonstration of how strongly the senses influence one another.

neuroscience · intro

Myelin

A fatty insulating sheath, produced by glial cells, that wraps around many axons and dramatically speeds the conduction of electrical signals along them. Myelinated axons conduct impulses far faster than unmyelinated ones. The progressive loss of myelin is the hallmark of multiple sclerosis, which produces a range of neurological symptoms as signal transmission is disrupted.